What Makes it Local?

This month, Intouch Magazine asked Elicia Grant to share her thoughts on what it means to be local. Elicia is a business banking consultant at CBA and co-owner of To The Edge High Performance Centre. Located at Cardiff, To The Edge offers local athletes a team of performance experts that are dedicated to giving them the best opportunity to become a champion.

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I am not a traditional local; I wasn’t born here and to make matters worse, I did not come here to go to Uni and stayed on afterwards. I lived in eight different towns and cities before I came to the region for work with CBA. My first role was working at the Hamilton Branch, then Mayfield, Toronto, Glendale, Salamander Bay, the Uni, Wallsend, Newcastle with the occasional Saturday morning shift at Kotara and Charlestown shopping centres. In many ways, I was very much exposed to local – the customers and clients and the characters. In 2017 I moved into business banking.

My postcode hasn’t been as dynamic as my work locations living in Adamstown, Cameron Park and now in North Lambton.

I play sport here (and frequented John Hunter as a result) and I have owned homes here. Additionally I volunteer here, I support business here, professionally and personally, and I am now a business owner here.

My biggest claim to being local however, is that I gave birth to my daughter here. She is local and as she grows I am fortunate to watch her create her own version of what makes it local.

The friends I have made here are my lifeblood. The village that raises my daughter. They all continuously teach her to be smart brave and kind. Part of this village includes Kate Bruce (leaps and Bounds Day Care) who took Ivy in when I couldn’t find care when returning to work and is now my best friend and co-village Mumma, PWB, Bacon Chick (and yes my daughter believes her real name is Bacon Chick), Melissa Histon and the Got Your Back Sista community and many more amazing women who also value what it means to be surrounded by local.

Drew and I have just created a partnership with others (again not local but who just like us want to grow and work within our community) to offer something amazing to local sportspeople and athletes. It is an exciting step. We stay in our lane and then work with our athletes to ensure that they can be their best on and off the park. That is about being part of the local community and understanding their place within that community to collaborate to be the best they can be.

Just as I am growing a business locally, I also want to grow my family. I know that this region can offer every opportunity to my daughter to be not only a fabulous citizen, but also a fabulous global citizen if she chooses to be. This is about taking advantage of the education, employment and social options or simply having access to the every changing community as it grows and develops its own identity on global scale.

I love the local community as a family.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR We welcome letters to the editor – if you have a community minded opinion and would like to share, please email getintouch@intouchmagazine.com.au.